Green Lantern

Green Lantern (2011)

Directed by Martin Campbell

Starring: Ryan Reynolds, Blake Lively, Peter Sarsgaard

With the recent wave of comic book films Green Lantern entered the discussion in 2011. Director Martin Campbell followed up his 2010 effort in Edge of Darkness with this action-packed adventure film. The movie stars Ryan Reynolds, Blake Lively, and Peter Sarsgaard. In addition, the talents of Tim Robbins, Angela Bassett, and Mark Strong are used to create this film.

The Guardians of the Universe have long protected the planets with the Green Lantern Corps. When one of the protectors, Abin Sur, is mortally wounded he seeks out his replacement on earth and finds him in Hal Jordan (Reynolds). This young fearless test pilot is presented with a ring that gives him incredible power and the duty of protecting the earth. Now he’s a part of the Green Lantern Corps and he’s got a lot to learn. Meanwhile scientist Hector Hammond (Sarsgaard) has gained telekinetic and telepathic powers after coming in contact with a piece of Parallax. This Parallax is the same substance that was a part of the being that killed Abin Sur and exists as the essence of fear. As Hammond grows more powerful he’s also lost his sanity, becoming a dangerous creature controlled by Parallax. Soon Green Lantern will have to face Hammond and Parallax. To do this he needs to learn about his new powers and gain the trust of the rest of the Green Lantern Corps.

I have to admit that I didn’t enjoy this movie as much as I hoped to. Having waited this long, I was aware of the poor opinions on the film. The British newspaper The Telegraph even called this one of the ten worst films of 2011. I’m not sure that I would go that far, but this definitely doesn’t stand up when compared to the other recent films in the genre.

This movie feels like a testing ground for visual effects teams. The film is filled with incredible visuals that appear throughout almost every scene in the film. Sadly this might be the highlight of the movie. Even with the strong efforts from the actors the movie feels weak. This is largely from the story, which doesn’t seem to work. The weak dialogue in the script is largely to blame, since it makes the movie laughable at times.

I do want to be clear about the acting. Reynolds and the rest of the cast do a really good job with the script. They just weren’t given much to work with.

I think this is a movie for the hardcore fans of Green Lantern. For most people this movie will stun you with visuals and disappoint you from every other angle. If you’re a fan of movies with cool effects and lots of action scenes you might get a kick out of this. Otherwise you might be happier finding something else to watch. I give this one 1.8 out of 5 stars.

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3 comments

I liked it better than you, but even as a hardcore Green Lantern fan, I have to say this was disappointing in a lot of ways. In fact, in some respects being a hardcore GL fan makes me less favorable in some ways; Hal is supposed to be fearless even by GL standards, he shouldn’t be sitting around moping to Carol about whether or not he can do the job. But yeah… as visually impressive as this was, I think they overreached on how abstract they could be with the concept, and the script as a whole needed more time being re-tooled.